Summary: Brennan and Booth go to a performance of Sex Through the Ages and their imaginations, as well as other things, are aroused.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters mentioned herein. No infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: This is a multi-chapter fic, however it will be short and I vow to finish it. Two maybe three chapters max. This chapter is not M rated but the next one certainly will be. As always, you can join my website and read the MA rated chapters there. Look forward to seeing you!

At first he thought he hadn't heard her correctly.

She continued to sign off reports with her sensible, hand-written signature that could easily, with a name like Temperance, be executed with a bit more flourish. Her expression was, well, expressionless and her pale cheeks were devoid of even the merest blush while his neck burned hotly.

"Circus of what?" he asked knowing that she would repeat the illicit words in the desperately arousing, oh-so-accurate French accent.

"Cirque d'Eroticism," she said, lifting her eyes now. "It was reviewed in Arts Weekly, to which I have been a subscriber for many years. It's supposed be an excellent portrayal of sex through the ages." His face warmed now as he imagined Brennan sitting in a theatre, atmosphere thick with pheromones, watching muscular, barely clothed men and women, demonstrating the art of sex. "Anyway, Angela cancelled because she's supposedly trying to patch things up with Hodgins. Do you want to go?"

The invitation lay out in the open, innocent in Brennan's eyes. Booth's skin prickled inside his dress shirt as he struggled to appear nonchalant. "I'm... ahem... I'm not sure it's a very platonically, partner kind of thing to do..." he told her calmly quite unable to look into her clinical eyes. She looked baffled, her brow furrowed and her full lips puckered in contemplation. After a moment she shrugged.

"I don't see why not, Booth. It's not some kind of orgy-"

"Jesus Bones," he groaned never quite comfortable with how she so easily and thoughtlessly blurted sexual references.

"Look," she signed off one final report, her desk now clear and organised – it suited her, of course. Few things in Temperance Brennan's life were disorganised. "I need someone to accompany me to the theatre, you're my logical choice after Angela. If you are objectionable to it, I'll ask Alex instead." He froze, much more disturbed by her offhanded comment than he ought to have been.

"Alex?" he enquired, experiencing a difficult time in keeping his tone even. She nodded, getting to her feet and shucking off her lab coat. Beneath she wore a sleeveless olive green, v-necked top that dipped dangerously low to her cleavage. He got to see her flesh for all too brief a moment before she slipped into a dark brown suede jacket.

"Yes, Alex – well Alessandro, actually. He's a performer for the District of Columbia Fine Arts Centre. He does mostly nude modelling and the odd poetry reading. We met some years ago when Angela dragged me to one of those art classes for company. I'm a useless painter, but anthropologically speaking, Alessandro was a perfect specimen of masculinity. We became good friends." Booth's jaw tightened as he imagined this 'perfect specimen'. Italian stallion, he betted. Fine sculpted looks, muscles to die for... there was no way in hell Brennan was taking him to this Cirque d'Eroticism.

"If it means that much to you, Bones, I'll go. But I should tell you, it's under protest." Her clear blue eyes swept over his face and he wondered if she had picked up on the sudden rise of jealousy. He was like a great bulldog, mapping his territory and it disgraced him that he had never made a move on Brennan yet he was loathe to think of any other man touching her.

"I don't want to be taking you under duress," she replied back evenly. "Alex would probably appreciate the art of it better, anyway." The inside of his cheeks hurt from where he'd gnawed on the flesh. "I just thought, since Ange cant go..."

"I'll go," he said. "I'll pick you up at eight." She ruffled her reddish hair, giving the silken strands added volume. Booth knew how many men lusted after her every day and as she stood there now entirely unaware of her own appeal.

"It doesn't start until eleven," she told him as her cell-phone began to trill in her jeans pocket. "It's supposed to be a play on sensuality and sexuality. You know," she began to fish her cell-phone out. "How sex is most commonly a night thing? Hello Brennan." She turned her back on him, exiting her office as she began to chat in low tones. Booth watched her retreat. What kind of a thing started at eleven? He had an eight-thirty meeting in the morning and just how long did this show of 'eroticism' last?

"I'll pick you up at ten!" he called after her, trepidation rising in his gut.

"Do I look alright?" Booth asked, turning off at the end of Brennan's street. He wore dark blue jeans and an open necked shirt and a dark green khaki jacket with brass buttons sewn into the cuffs. Smart and casual – perfect for a night at the 'theatre'. She nodded her approval.

She wore jeans herself, he noticed, and a cashmere sweater of the deepest shade of red that clung to her full, round breasts. On her feet she wore the highest boots he'd ever seen in his life. Her lipstick was a darker shade than he was familiar with, too. All in all, she looked like a sexy vixen going to watch people perform sex rituals under the guise of art.

"You look good too," he said and in the next breath, "thank God it isn't raining, huh? Forecasters said rain." Her cinnamon eyebrow arched as she coolly analysed his nervousness without speaking. Clearing her throat, Brennan crossed one leg over the other and flicked an invisible piece of lint from her jeans. "So... have you read the program for this thing? I suspect it's no minors?" he chuckled at his own joke, recognising the distinct tremor of discomfort in his tone.

"No one under eighteen," she confirmed evenly. "Turn left here," Brennan directed him feeling smug that she'd rattled him so much. The reviews of Cirque d'Eroticism had been rave, with critics calling it 'sexy and enchanting', 'a marvellous experience' and one particularly hard to impress journalist calling it 'the performance of the year'. She suspected that Booth would be a difficult one to win over, being that he viewed sex as a taboo – or at least he behaved as though it were.

The Eclipse was a trendy, fairly new building in DC. From the outside it looked like an old fashioned theatre, with pillars that were under-lit with luminous white lights and two impossibly tall banners stretched from the ground to the roof on either side of the entrance, showing two lithe and agile gymnasts in compromising positions. Their bodies were covered by white, majestic Lycra and their muscles seemed to ripple, even in the still photos.

Booth stood at the foot of the steps, peering with wide-eyes while Brennan in her high heels, clinked all the way to the top before calling him to hurry along.

The lobby was bustling with an eclectic group of people; young couples all the way to middle aged couples. Booth found the distinct lack of 'friends' disturbing as everyone there seemed to be involved in slightly more personal ways. Brennan, with her jacket slung over her arm, busied herself with information plaques on the wall while Booth stood awkwardly, hands shoved deeply into his pocket trying hard to avoid meeting anyone's gaze.

"Come," Brennan said, taking his arm. "The show is about to begin."

The lighting was dim as they took their seats, the stage lit by violet and pink lights. As the seats filled, the room was plunged into darkness and a hush fell over the audience. For a long moment silence lay like a blanket before an almighty drum beat vibrated through the air. Booth sat still, afraid almost of how the evening might progress. There was too much sensuality, too much anticipation pulsating through the atmosphere. Wide eyes watched with apt expectation while he was rigid with trepidation.

He was from a staunch Catholic family where sex wasn't spoken so openly and with such abandon. Who on earth wrote a play about just the art of it? Certainly, he thought lifting his chin in private defiance, he could pleasure his woman. He liked to think he was quite good in bed – but God almighty it just wasn't decent-

His thoughts ended abruptly as a flame haired woman in bright red Lycra stepped, barefoot unto the stage. Her skin was pale white, alabaster almost against the shocking vibrancy of

her outfit. Even from the seventh row, Booth could see that her toenails were painted the same shade as she moved with dancer-like elegance. After a moment, she wave the audience a wink, smirking with wicked intent.

As she began to juggle seven shiny red apples, gyrating her slender hips in a sashaying motion as she crossed the stage towards a buff, Adonis of a man who reclined on a red velvet covered chez longue that had ornate gold feet in opulent design. He wore nothing but a piece of cloth draped over his groin. The woman's execution of the juggling trick was flawless, her eyes never leaving the reclining man, who beckoned her with come-to-bed eyes that Booth wasn't altogether sure was acting.

"This is an interpretation of Eve tasting the forbidden fruit and juggling with her conscience," Brennan translated for him in a lowly whisper. "She wants him but she knows it's wrong to take him." Booth quirked an eyebrow, watching as she expertly dispersed of six of the red apples, the shiny spheres rolling down her spine, over her curvaceous buttocks, the back of her thighs before being nudged by her foot into the wings, somewhere. When she was left with one, the woman turned to the audience and with slow, seductive deliberation took a large bite from the fruit, the sound of crisp, snapping skin reverberating throughout the theatre.

"I take it we can assume she gave into her temptation, then?" Booth asked, a little too loudly. Brennan hushed him with a firm glare and he pursed his lips, turning back to the performance. The man slipped from the chez, crossing the stage to her. The ritual of dance that followed was supposedly laden with sexual references but Booth understood none of it, aside from entwined limbs and one instance that he thought might have been a demonstration of fellatio.

In the end the woman wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck and gyrated herself against his groan – all to the beat of a slow, entrancing thundering of orchestral music that rose to a vibrating crescendo at the same moment the woman did – letting out a shuddering groan that was so realistic Booth wondered if she was really having an orgasm right there, on stage.

A sideways glance at Brennan told him that she too felt somewhat awkward. Good, he thought. Served her right for dragging him to his pornographic production anyway. Still, he couldn't ignore the pulsating inside his pants as his own arousal increased. Brennan swept her moist, pink tongue across her lips but kept her eyes fixed firmly on the stage ahead. When she squirmed in her seat he wondered if she felt the stirrings of desire between her firm, jean-clad thighs.

Cirque was a good word for what remained of the show. Acrobats tumbled and jumped across the stage, each depicting one or another form of sexual pleasure. Contortionists demonstrated, with disturbingly vivid imagery, the art of self gratification and the show ended with yet more dancers – three in sparkly sequenced outfits interpreting ménage á trois, rubbing and caressing each other, two women and one fairly ecstatic man. Finally fourteen performers back-flipped, rolled and shimmied on stage for a grand finale and what Brennan told Booth was an orgy. He distinctly recalled her telling him earlier that this was not an orgy and he was tempted to remind her of it.

However he found he was quite unable to look away.

As the curtains closed to a thunderous applause, Brennan turned to him with a glimmer in her eyes. She clapped, caressing him with her eyes. He wondered if it felt as though something had shifted between them, mid performance. There was, after all, only so many sexual acts two people could sit through before finding themselves increasingly horny. As he stood, Booth held his jacket over his lap and Brennan's silvery-blue eyes lowered, filled with unspoken speculation.

She cleared her throat.

"What did you think?" she asked, her voice croaky with desire. He knew it was desire because he was a man, and as a fully sexual male, he recognised want in a woman.

"It was certainly interesting," he replied as nonchalantly as he could. Interesting, however, was an understatement. The ideas provoked by Cirque d'Eroticism were profound, coming vivid and fast through his testosterone addled brain. Lithe bodies, shimmering outfits that he suspected glimmered just perfectly under the spotlights to emulate perspiration and downright sweaty sex. Everything about the performance had been carefully orchestrated for maximum impact and he believed that every couple would be heading home now for a hot, rampant night in the sack.

Somehow this idea made him feel lonely and forlorn.

"You okay?" Brennan asked as they stepped out into the cool, instantly sobering night air. He shifted his thoughts and nodded brightly.

"I'm fine, Bones. Just no more erotic performances for me, okay?" His voice carried plenty enough mirth for her to know he was altogether serious.

"It was quite erotic, wasn't it?" There was just something too damn distracting in the way erotic rolled off her tongue. He unlocked his car and got inside, cursing his wayward hormones. Acting like a damn teenager was foolish and dangerous and God would his hard-on please go away?

He took her home in silence, each reflecting and replaying the visual representation of sexual emotion with stunning clarity. It was only when he pulled up outside her building that he noticed the windows had steamed and his stomach tightened. Brennan swept her hand across the glass, leaving a trail of slender finger-marks and her skin damp with the results of their laboured breathing. She chuckled, dropping her hand to her jeans.

"Well-" he began, only to be silenced as she leapt across the space between them, straddled his thighs and dropped her mouth to his. A muffled groan of surprise rose in his chest, as she settled against his straining erection, her fingers in his hair. Her hands felt cool and soft, her mouth hot and urgent as she kissed him with unleashed abandon. His arms slipped around her, her breasts pressed against his chest. "Bones..." he whimpered as her insistent mouth dropped hard, hot kisses along his throat, her tongue slipping across his Adam's apple and beyond. "Christ... Bones... Bones!" he gripped her arms, pulling back. Her lower lip pushed out petulantly, and inside his SUV the air smelt heady with sex. Raw, uncontrolled arousal. He inhaled it. "Not there... it's too open. Upstairs."

She released a breath, getting off his lap. Smoothing her chair, Brennan cleared her throat and opened the door. "Lets go," she said, getting out slamming the door. He watched her sashay up to her front door, looking over her shoulder. A shudder coursed through his body as he tried – struggled in fact – to control himself.

"Damn right..." he growled, hurrying to follow.

-End-

Like I said, this will be two chapters – three max. The next one will be MA rated and will be up soon! )

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